Entrepreneurial thinking and acting is increasingly becoming a highly sought-after competence in the world of work. Not only shall the self-employed and company founders have the appropriate skills, but also on their parts companies rely on entrepreneurial thinking because of the ever-increasing pressure to create innovations. Comprehensive vocational training does therefore not have to disregard the field of entrepreneurship education. One oft he project’s aim is therefore to develop a holistic entrepreneurship education-concept consisting of several identified best practices in order to comprehensively address the areas of the EntreComp framework. Digital change will be taken into account and the potential of digital media and media-supported forms of learning will be taken up in order to promote a tested set of instruments for measuring and promoting entrepreneurial skills among young people. The concept will be implemented on a digital platform that promotes collaborative and reflected learning among young people as well as educational staff and supports project management in the application of the instruments (organisation, monitoring and control). Subsequently, the platform-based application of the holistic entrepreneurship education-concept will be tested in the partner countries. The teaching philosophy behind the project is strength orientation. The application of this principle proves to be advantageous both for the development of competences of young people and for managers. Digital media offer young people the opportunity to organize their own learning. The project’s aims is to address digitization issues, such as industry 4.0 and design thinking, and on this basis to develop autodidactic modules for multipliers. The autodidicatic modules qualify people who work with young people in vocational orientation or training for matters of Entrepreneurship Education and they contain material that can be directly used for the work with young people. By a central digital platform being attainable for the supervisors, the mentors and the young people not only project information in various depth, organizational references and applied learning materials of the holistic entrepreneurship education-concept can be retrieved, but the platform also enables a direct communication, effective feedback processes, a better quality management and above all suitable solutions for people involved. In this context, suitable means that content can be flexibly used in terms of time and space and researched according to the current needs of the individual or group. The organization of the different work phases (self-learning - interactive work phase - cooperation with the learning guide) can also be coordinated and carried out accordingly. The participants can write reports, share their experiences with potential other participants, search the database of learning guides for competent contacts. The partners significantly contribute to the project’s success by their expertise and as coordinators of local activities. In Hungary and Bulgaria, the Chambers of Industry and Commerce were found as partners. In Greece, a renowned IT company and a management consultancy were won as partners, and in Spain an organization for business development and in Italy the Department of Business and Law at Milano Bicocca University. Last but not least, the consortium will be further enhanced by the two associated partners, the Lippe zu Detmold Chamber of Industry and Commerce and the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. The project is coordinated by the Institute for Work Science (IAW) at Bochum Ruhr University. In the first step, the representatives of the respective partner country are trained in the transfer and application of the concept within the framework of the kick-off and a teaching/learning activity. In the total of all activities, the consortium will develop a series of intellectual outputs which will be applied beyond the project, which will be accessible to third parties and thus contribute to its impact and sustainability. The outputs are the holistic Entrepreneurship Education Concept and five autodidactic modules for self-study. The latter are to be established in the individual EU countries as a recognized certification program for so-called learning guides and are e.g. offered at the respective chambers and universities. In order to promote the project’s dissemination, impact, and sustainability, the project partners are to organize multiplier events in their countries in addition to the pilot application, where the holistic entrepreneurship education-concept, its application via the associated platform and the self-learning modules are presented and discussed.
The aim of the project was to improve vocational education and training with regard to entrepreneurial thinking and action, taking into account the changes associated with the digital transformation. To this end, a holistic entrepreneurship education concept was developed and tested by drawing on existing individual concepts for promoting entrepreneurial competence. By combining and further developing selected best practice learning materials in the field of entrepreneurship education, the aim was to cover all 15 entrepreneurship competences of the EntreComp Framework together. The methodological-didactic design of the learning process is based on methods of agile learning and takes place in short "learning sprints". Part of the concept was the creation of a learning platform that supports the development of a sustainable professional perspective for young people as well as new marketable services. The learning platform promotes constructive feedback from mentors and experts. Self-learning modules on relevant aspects of entrepreneurship education such as "Design Thinking" and "Agile Project Management" were created, which serve to qualify the mentors in their work with the young people.
Despite positive youth unemployment trends in Europe, many young people fail to enter the labour market (Kröll, 2020a). The spread of the Covid 19 virus further impeded young people's access to education and work. Added to this are megatrends such as digitization, which place new competence requirements on young people (Kröll & Burova-Keßler, 2021a). Thus, entrepreneurial thinking and action are gaining in importance, not only for company founders, but also for people seeking permanent employment. Employees are required to think and act like "intrapreneurs" when it comes to product and service innovations. On the other hand, the digital transformation has an impact on the forms of competence development of young people (Hirsch-Kreinsen, Ittermann & Niehaus, 2018/2). These needs were addressed in the Career 4.0 project and a holistic entrepreneurship concept was created based on established best practices from various EU countries. With the support of mentors, science-based concepts and a learning platform, young people can be empowered to discover entrepreneurial mindsets and develop the necessary skills.